The poem
begins with the simple line: “Laugh and the whole world laughs with you/Weep
and you weep alone”. From here onward the poem follows the idea that the world
is after pleasure and joy and it does not want to listen to sad stories. Since
the world is filled with so much misery, sorrow and personal worries, it has no
mirth of its own.
In
the following stanza the poet says that men will seek us if we rejoice but they
will turn us down if we grieve or feel sorrow. A man who is happy will have
many friends but a man who is not happy and hopeless will not have any friends
at all. Ours is a world that goes after happiness, not after misery. In simple
words the poet repeats the idea that happiness will attract more happiness and
sorrow will take us away from enjoying happy moments. Finally, it will make us
lonely where we will have to enjoy our own company. A complaining man or sad
person will be forced to live his life in loneliness. There will not be anyone
to share his sorrow. She clarifies this idea by saying that many will come to
drink from our nectared wine while no one will show his willingness to share
the bitter taste of our life. Toward the end of the poem, she magnifies the
idea of solitude by saying that we all go alone to face death which is the
saddest thing that can happen to a person. The poem asks us to be positive and
attract good company. Thus it has an optimistic tone (hopeful tone). It demands
us that we stop being critical and negative which will only make us lonely.
Many poetic devices are cleverly used by the poet: nectared wine-gustatory
image, aisles of pain-tactile image, feast and your halls are crowded-visual
image, sing and the hills will answer-auditory image etc are some of them. The
poet has also used the technique of internal rhyiming. The pairs: earth/mirth,
bound/sound, measure/pleasure, decline/pain etc are examples for that.
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